Score: 7.5 / 10

“With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.”

Max Ehrmann

Often I wonder why the human experience is filled with so much suffering and evil. But perhaps only in such chaos can one truly feel the essence of good. The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place is a 2003 post-rock album released by the band Explosions In the Sky and I believe that it beautifully captures the optimistic emotional revelation one may feel towards the world.

Despite its post-rock genre the album strays from the usual disarraying trend in which bands struggle to find a climax or conclusion within their intended ideas and delivers a melodramatic masterpiece that is not so common within instrumental art-rock. The entire album feels like a journey through the perception of one’s subjective human experience. It starts with the eerie yet hopeful track “First Breath After Coma” which introduces itself with a repeated single note that rings through the intro as if it were a reflection of the beating heart. This then followed by the gentle electric guitar strumming which subtly lifts you into this state of awakening, as if it were guiding you to some emotional outcome. All this, accompanied with a rhythmic drumming pattern that assimilates itself to a sort of marching pace, causes me to feel as if I was brought into a beautiful scenic encounter with a new fantasy world.

The next few tracks leading up to “Memorial” feels like a flight through this new world, showing how beautiful this reverie can be. Yet, it portrays this sort of lonely melancholy that reminds you that you are an individual living in some world, some independent soul that yearns for beauty in life. All that only to realize that this pursuit of yours is a lonely pursuit, an individual chase for purpose. The slow paced change within “Memorial” does really well to portray the bittersweet emotions that one comes to realize in this lonely pursuit. I would go as far as to say that it draws one back to the realization that the attractive daydream they come to see is only fiction, bringing you back in dramatic acknowledgement that one lives in the world and is born of it. Yet, it does not encapsulate the loneliness that may drive one to depressive thoughts, but one that is rooted in hope. The track ends in a soft electric guitar serenade that slowly rises, only to rip into a distorted strumming that reminds you that you are indeed alive, that despite all the disappointment, you are indeed still living.

“Your Hand in Mine” closes this album with its slower pace that builds back up to the marching rhythm introduced by the first track “First Breath After Coma”. It feels like a trip back home to where you started your journey, bringing all the melancholy, desolation, and loneliness back from the ironically beautiful adventure. The realization that you have to eventually come back to reality and face it. Yet in all of this the hope that rings through the entire album does not die, but shines all the more here. It reminds you that maybe, life does not have to be all that bad, that perhaps it already is beautiful. You begin to realize that the fantasy you saw previously was a reflection of the world, of what it could be, or how it already is, only seen in the eyes of a hopeful dreamer. No longer should you feel lonely in this beautiful world that houses many other souls, no longer should you go through evil and suffering alone. Life can be and is beautiful as long as you wish to see it that way.